


Tainted Love

by DigitalMoriarty



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Brainwashing (sort of), M/M, Murder Machine Maximoffs, Pietro is Scary, Wanda is Scarier, twisted fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-08 14:43:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7761943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DigitalMoriarty/pseuds/DigitalMoriarty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pietro loves Kurt. Kurt loves Pietro. Wanda wants what's best for everyone. And you really can solve most problems with murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Building the Machine

**Author's Note:**

> I swore I wouldn't write this and then I did. Blame Scarletwix over on tumblr. Like always. Soooo much blame.
> 
> Edit: [LOOKIT WHAT SCARLETWIX MADE](http://scarletwix.tumblr.com/post/149354518738/tainted-love-aesthetic-the-murder-twins-pietro)
> 
> Edit 2: [LOOK AT THIS AMAZING ART](http://orange-helius.tumblr.com/post/149621782748/illustration-to-tainted-love-by) I don't even know why it took me so long to put this up SINCE IT'S GORGEOUS

To someone in possession of all the facts "tainted" might be the kindest word to apply to the three of them. Other, crueler words were available of course. But the only one with all those facts is Wanda, and she loves her brother and so she thinks it's wonderful. She makes  _ certain  _ it's wonderful.

 

She didn't mean to do it, at the very start. Later, when she's older, she can see that this is the way her powers first manifested, but at the time… It just made life easier, didn't it? Made life happier for everyone. Her little… edits, of those around her. 

 

It started with her brother, because all things started with Pietro, didn't they? When they were little, he'd had a bit of a temper. And then, one day, he didn't any more. He didn't get angry about anything. At all.  She'd fixed that later, of course. Anger was important sometimes, and people got concerned. 

 

In those first few years of  _ fixing  _ things, it never worked quite right. She'd been too ambitious, too careless, and Pietro, at least, still suffered the side effects sometimes. (Gaps in his memory, problems with his emotions, an aversion to certain things). Her mother and younger sister too probably, but she didn't visit often enough to know. She's much more adept now. Kurt's proof enough of that.

  
  
  


Kurt and Pietro love each other. This is a fact on par with 'space is big' and 'stars are hot' in terms of its understatement.

 

The fact that Kurt didn't start out loving Pietro is irrelevant. As is his current inability to function on his own. Those things are unimportant in the face of love. At least if you asked Wanda. (Which you were welcome to do. You'd even get an answer before you forgot that you'd asked a question or been suspicious in the first place).

  
  


Wanda first kills someone when she's 14. It's an accident. Not many teenagers have it together, and she was coping with her powers growing stronger and manifesting in new ways, and her brother being  _ himself  _ and school and… No one ever blamed her. No one ever even connected her to it. And at least Pietro, who was the only one who  _ did  _ know, was never scared of her. She was his sister and he adored her.

 

Pietro first kills someone when he's 16. It isn't an accident. Wanda's childhood workaround has resulted in a generally anger free personality occasionally struck with violent rage when loved ones are under threat. Wanda probably could have managed by herself, but she doesn't have the chance. The death is attributed to a brain aneurysm, not to it's actual cause. After all, an unprotected human body, without any extra mutations, is not designed to survive hypersonic speeds. Especially when that speed is directed towards turning the brain into scrambled eggs.

 

They leave after that. Wanda appreciates what Pietro did, and they can survive just fine on their own. It doesn't matter that no one saw anything. But their small town is just that, small. And Wanda has… ideas. And Pietro (an endless font of bad ideas himself) is happy to go along with them, or at least, he's been happy to go along with them since he was ten.

 

There's reading material, if you know how to find it. And a girl, scared for herself and for her (usually unconcerned) brother, is damn well going to find it. And the ideas… Mutants  _ are _ better. Certainly better than most humans she knows, who look down on her family. Even though their mother loves them and does her best and they're  _ happy _ . 

 

So at 16, they're out in the world, living on their own. Their mother doesn't want to let them, but Wanda convinces her it's for the best. They don't have to worry about money. Or food or shelter. What they do have to worry about is plans. And the fact that, from where Wanda's standing, the world needs a revolution that it isn't getting. And she and her brother… well, killing humans is  _ easy _ . A good hex bolt, or just some bad luck, or a bit of mental fiddling. Exposure to the speed and g-force that Pietro  _ enjoys _ . They break like porcelain dolls dropped on pavement. From fifty stories up.

 

It's Pietro's idea to go looking for their father. Something to do, as they work their way across the world. So that's what they do, eventually. They've got some clues, from papers Pietro 'found' and memories Wanda 'discovered'. A man who can control metal. What seems to be a pet name in what a bit of looking identifies as German. Sharp features and a shark like smile.

 

But that search is secondary to what else they do.

 

Wanda has made a list, which seems to constantly grow longer, of people who have hurt mutant kind. Through laws or actions or words. And she and her brother work their way through it. Steadily, making their way across the country through the simple method of Pietro carrying her where they need to go. They get better at it. The murder thing. And she gets better at… editing. (She doesn't practice on Pietro, hasn't since they hit puberty and she accidentally broke  _ something _ inside him. She put it back to rights of course, but until she managed to fix it… She tries not to think about that, even when she can see the cracks she's caused).

 

It can get a bit… messy sometimes. Especially given one of Pietro's favorite methods is to grab a victim by the back of their shirt and run at top speed through the nearest door. Making sure that the victim in question encountered the wall on his way out. The word 'splat' did not quite encompass it, but it did an admirable effort towards doing so. But they don't get caught, and their story (much to her annoyance) somehow avoids spreading. 

 

Years pass.

 

When their 19th birthday comes and goes (celebrated with cake and illegal booze and a small killing spree) they make their way across the ocean to Europe. They're still looking for their father, in a sort of absent fashion. It's for that reason that, once on shore again (after Pietro's slept off his exhaustion. Running 5000 odd miles over water takes it out of a guy) they head for Germany. Neither of them really expects to find their father there, but they might find hints. 

 

They do not find hints. They _ do _ find Kurt Wagner.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their hands are bloody and their smiles are bright and Kurt doesn't have any choice in the matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm torn on further elaboration of their time in Europe. Feel free to comment with opinions!

They go to the circus on a whim, for something to do while Wanda takes a break from researching potential targets and Pietro takes a break from his latest round of 'steal everything that isn't nailed down, steal a hammer, steal the nails, and then steal the things that used to be nailed down just because I can' and Wanda knows, the very second the other mutant shows up. Her brother's mind lights up with fireworks of attraction and earnest desire and a  _ need _ to know the acrobat better. And Wanda has never been able to deny Pietro something he wants. So the twins wait, and after the show, she finds out what she needs to know. The blue skinned man is some years younger than they are (but her brother can wait, he has patience for certain things) at just 14, and he's an orphan of some sort, taken in by the circus, named Kurt Wagner by his adoptive mother.

 

Pietro's disgusted with himself, but that doesn't last long. Wanda can't bear to have her brother hurting. He didn't know, after all, and age or innocence isn't what made his mind light up like some fancy Christmas tree. It was life and movement and curiosity and those have no age limit. She sends him off afterwards, back to the room they've rented, and goes to talk to Kurt herself.

 

Kurt, she swiftly discovers, is not like them. He is sweet natured and smiles easily and is happy to hear that she and her brother enjoyed the show. He loves the circus, and God and is good and kind. She hopes, in her heart of hearts, that that does not change. She tells him that she and her brother are a bit like he is, fellow mutants. That they hope to see him again. And then she leaves. She does not delve into his mind, beyond the surface skimming that reveals a complete lack of deception in anything he says.

 

She distracts Pietro with a little side project, while they're in the area. There are still Nazis left in Germany, although it's harder to find them. Not impossible though. And once they do find them, they are simple enough to deal with. If you don't mind a permanent sort of solution. In this case, the solution takes the form of Pietro with a baseball bat and energy to work off. It's messy and bloody and it takes some scrubbing to get him clean again afterwards, but he's feeling better by the end and that's what Wanda wanted.

 

They go back to the circus a few more times, that first year, before it moves to another town, and the twins make their way to France. Every time, Pietro's mind lights up and he stills from his usual buzz of motion to watch Kurt perform. Every time, Wanda reminds him that his fascination isn't wrong and takes him out to work out some energy. Every time, Kurt gets a visit from her after, gets told of the admiration they have for his skills, for his mutation. France makes a good vacation for them. After a year of hunting both Nazis and potential connections to their father, it's nice to take a break.

 

She learns French and they go to southern France for a time, and find the  Manouche. It reminds them of their mother, and while they are there, Pietro manages to keep himself in check (because he refuses to let his problems contribute to the bad reputation that their kin unjustly bear). The crimes they do commit though, are more brutal. Pent up emotions and needs and the ever simmering rage made worse by seeing what their new neighbors endure.

 

For their birthday, Wanda finds out where Kurt's circus is, and they go to see him. Pietro's mind still lights up, and he gives Kurt a colorful bouquet which makes the blue mutant blush and Wanda laugh. (Pietro's present to her is a man's head. The man in question being the one behind some especially unpleasant anti-mutant sentiment. She sees nothing wrong with this.)

 

Together, Wanda and Pietro criss-cross Europe, always returning to Germany in the end, always back to seats at the circus. It's a strange sort of… home. A moving constant, a place apart from their self appointed task of righting wrongs. Kurt grows older, and Pietro falls even more in love, and Wanda tries to decide what to do about it.

 

In the end, whatever she might have planned is set aside in favor of the demands the world makes. They have spent three years killing and stealing and travelling and it is not precisely luck that makes sure they're in the right place at the right time, because luck has always had a strange relationship with Wanda, but it's something close enough that it doesn't matter. 

 

Pietro is watching mesmerized as Kurt moves, and Wanda leaves him to his staring. It does her good to see the joy on her brother's face. It isn't there often. Watching Kurt and running for the sake of itself and killing those who would hurt their kind are all he seems to have left. (She hasn't changed anything about his mind, but the world has left its mark). And she hears some of the circus workers talking. The circus has been bought out. By some American business man. (And they have avoided returning to America, for one reason or another). And this business man wants their star acrobat, the circus's darling, to be placed in the freak show. And Wanda is very glad she is the one who heard this, because even  _ she _ might have trouble stopping Pietro if he had been the one to discover that news. That night, she makes a choice.

 

She visits Kurt that night. And he is still so good, and so kind and so gentle. And she reaches into his mind, and… She will admit, to herself at least, that the Kurt that follows her away from the circus, trails after her to the little apartment she and Pietro are currently living in, is not the same Kurt who woke up that morning. That he is not the same man, and he will never be again. But this new Kurt adores her brother, and wants to come along with them.

 

"What?"   
"You have been coming to see me perform for years, of course I noticed you… Do you not-"   
"No no I do I do I'm just surprised…"

 

While the two men talk, Pietro looks to his sister. And she sweeps away any doubts he has. Any suspicions. In the end, Kurt gives him a kiss on the cheek and helps them pack their things to leave.

  
Kurt will be good for him. Wanda is certain of that. Wanda will  _ make  _ certain of that.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to flail about Nightsilver with me (or anything else) I'm on Tumblr as DigitalMoriarty. I'll probably end up posting stuff about this fic (and others) there, if you want to take a look.


End file.
